There is a new book out on the semantic web by Thomas Passin that I need to recomend (Oh, and Danny Ayers has spotted it), because it is good and I'm in it. Well, that's not entirely true, but a few spelling and technical mistakes that is not in it could have been there if I was not there as a technical editor, bugging Tom with them, and letting him know what I thought of his prose. Which I thought was excelent, btw.

The book 'The explorers guide to the semantic web' is now available in eBook form at 20$, or you can wait a couple of weeks for the dead-tree version for about the double of that. The gory details are 'June 2004, Softbound, 304 pages, ISBN 1932394206'. It contains mostly information about the semantic web, but has also got quite a lot of Topic maps in there too, one whole chapter and interspersed bits, and a use case using the excelent TM4Jscript Topic Maps engine. The blurb from the Manning website says;

This Guide acquaints you with the basic ideas and technologies of the Semantic Web, their roles and inter-relationships. The book's basic, conceptual approach is accessible to readers with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. The key areas covered include knowledge modeling (RDF, Topic Maps), ontology (OWL), agents (intelligent and otherwise), distributed trust and belief, "semantically-focused" search, and much more.

Enjoy, and congratulations to Tom on a book project long in the making.